"From Fishing to Farmers Markets" ....news & events, issues & ideas

Thursday, February 18, 2016

The Blob is Dead!

According to two WA State meteorologists,
Cliff Mass and Nicholas Bond, “The Blob” is disappearing from the NE Pacific
Ocean and El Nino is weakening also. Both weather phenomena have wreaked havoc
on our coastal and off-shore fisheries. Last summer Albacore tuna racedfar and wide for schools of bait and the winter Dungeness crab
season opened late in WA and Oregon and may open soon in CA. The CA market
squid disappeared totally this winter along with the CA sardine. The squid remain
in the cool deep waters during an El Nino. They will return next winter. The
sardine, however, follows a 55-60 yr. wax and wane cycle and we are right smack
in the middle period (2010-2030) when the biomass diminishes below fishible levels.
Without these bait fish, our albacore didn’t collect under big schools of bait
like normal.

The Blob was
the result of a high pressure ridge over the North Pacific which persisted much
longer than expected. The effect was to diminish surface winds which stir up
the ocean and cause the upwelling of cold water from the deep. This is nutrient
rich water bearing zooplankton and diatoms, are an essential part of the
aquatic food chain. The coastal waters were warmer than normal from the effects
of El Nino and the off-shore waters of Washington and Oregon were warmer and
less abundant with bait fish because of The Blob.

The Blob
also had a deleterious effect on the baby salmon emerging into the open ocean
from all the big river systems such as the Columbia, the Frasier, the Puget
Sound system, and the Northern California rivers. There was less food around
the coasts, and then out to sea was the Blob with virtually no bait fish. We
wish the baby salmon well on their 2-4 year ocean going journey.

The squid
will survive and come back next winter in Southern California. They thrive in
56-62 degree water and those temperatures will fill in by next Fall.Squid are bait, with a life span of 10 months
on the average. Albacore love to eat squid. Anchovies are another bait that
salmon and albacore favor. In 2014 off of Big Sur, in one hour, we saw over 40 humpback
whales, and thousands of porpoise and pilot whales feeding on massive schools
of anchovies. The anchovy stock had reached its zenith . Now the anchovy and
sardine stocks are down sliding into the trough of the 55-60 year climate cycle
which will be at its lowest abundance level for sardines in 2020. The salmon stocks
will diminish also until their reemergence in the peak years of 2030-40.

In the meantime,
the demise of The Blob and the slow demise of El Nino are very good signs that
our albacore, crab, shrimp, and squid fisheries will get back to normal. The
salmon fishery for Fraser River sockeye does not look good this summer, and the
CA sardine fishery probably won’t open until after we're in Davey Jones' Locker. Fishermen are
always optimistic or we wouldn’t throw off the lines and head to sea. We are
going fishing anyway because that’s what we do. The weather will always weather
on us and the fish supply will always wax and wane. Good riddance to both The
Blob and El Nino!

Below are
some links to blogs, articles and papers which I read along with seed catalogs
for winter fare.

The "blob" in the Eastern North Pacific Ocean affected our 2015 albacore fishery and also the 2015-6 dungeness crab fishery off the Washington and Oregon coast. The blob was a huge plankton bloom, mostly of the pseudo-nitzschia diatom. When these particular diatoms died, they emitted domoic acid which moved up the food chain. This result did not adversely effect fish or crab. However, it can cause illness in birds, marine mammals, and humans. The levels of domoic acid are tested frequently in razor clams and in crab. Currently, there is no danger anywhere on the Washington and Oregon Coasts. Albacore tuna caught last summer in 2015 were not adversely affected by this plankton bloom.

Meanwhile this winter, jigs for tuna are readied for the season.
You always wonder...why so many variations? Is it for the fisherman or the fish? I have my favorites and they involve real feathers. There is a certain way jigs act in the water when the boat rolls; they speed up and slow down, and it is how the jig acts in this motion that determines whether I like it or not.
Probably if I just kept the hooks sharp and free of eel grass it would not matter.